The Pervasiveness of Gang Culture in LA
As the gang capital of the world, Los Angeles is home to more than four hundred and fifty active gangs that are host to in excess of forty-five thousand members. For over fifty years, this public safety issue has been ravaging the lives of poor minority and immigrant neighborhoods, tearing families and communities apart. Because the culture of violence that surrounds these gangs remains relatively confined to those underprivileged and underserved areas, those of us Angelenos who reside beyond its reach seem unwilling to address it as the epidemic it has proven to be. Does their race or social class influence our level of concern? Do we value these citizens equally? How have media images affected your opinion of these individuals/communities?
I think that race absolutely plays a role in our consideration of gang violence as an epidemic. Generally, people aren't inclined to care as much about problems that don't affect their own community. For example, you can look at the responses to the crack epidemic of the late 20th century versus the current opioid epidemic: when the communities affected are white, political figures and/or those with lobbying power are much quicker to call for action. In the eyes of most politicians/the media, white people are more victimized. While law enforcement responded to the crack epidemic with mass incarceration and criminalization of low-income communities of color, people didn't start making the ethical/logical response to drug crises until the opioid crisis, as now people are calling for more treatment and to view addiction as a disease when they largely weren't doing so before.
ReplyDeleteBeyond just myopia and the pattern of only having empathy for those racially/economically similar to you, I think people write off gang violence as somewhat inevitable, believing that if you join a gang, you have to accept whatever violence comes to you. Those in wealthier/whiter communities forget the factors that lead people to join a gang in the first place: often, people join gangs because of protection (as the police often do not protect low-income communities of color effectively, or cause violence themselves). Additionally, social and economic isolation (due to low-quality public education, racism, and lack of economic opportunity) may also lead people to join gangs.
I did some quick reading on the history of gangs in L.A. because I don't know too much about it, and I found this cool timeline—feel free to check it out.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.southcentralhistory.com/gang-history.php
What I found the most interesting while reading this was that the first gangs in LA where made up of white people in response to a rising Black population in the city in 1940. These gangs included the Spooks and the KKK. The first Black and Latino gangs were started actually in response to the white gangs. In the 1960s (during the Watts riots) the Black and Latino gangs were very involved in the civil rights movement and the gangs started to dissipate as members started to join groups like the Black Panther Party and the Brown Berets in order to combat police brutality and racism. Then in the 1970s as they police became worried about these two groups, the government started COINTELPRO to spy on them and they dissipated. Gangs started to come back and the Bloods and the Crips formed, and violence escalated. In the 80's and 90's gang violence started to spiral out of control with the introduction of drugs and such. However, after the LA riots gang related homicides dropped startlingly low.
anway, sorry for the history lesson...
I was very surprised that gangs actually started in LA as a response to racism and violence caused by groups like the KKK. To answer your question Luke, I definitely think that race and social class has influenced the government's level of concern, which was evident when COINTELPRO was started in the 70s. I also think that redlining in LA probably has a lot to do with how we perceive/profile/stereotype other people because lot of cities in LA are known to be more gang heavy than others.
For today's urban lab, Rachel, Charlotte, Simone, and I spent time at the Urban Peace Institute, a non-profit organization committed to reducing violence and promoting health and safety in high risk LA areas. A lot of the organization's work involves facilitating conversations between key community members (teachers in local schools, law enforcement, youth representatives, parents, etc.) on mitigating gang violence/recruitment; for example, one of the most common and pressing community issues is ensuring that kids are able to get to and from school safely, so UPI worked with neighborhood residents to develop their Safe Passages program. UPI accomplishes positive change by facilitating dialogue between community members as opposed to prescribing solutions. You mentioned that Angelenos who are removed from the immediate threat of pervasive gang violence seem unwilling to address the issue. I agree - most of us know little to nothing about the history of gang violence in LA, and honestly, I'm sure most people don't know where to start when it comes to solving the problem. It's challenging to combat violence by forcing change and again, prescribing solutions, as an outsider in an altogether different community. In my group's interview today with a staff member at UPI, a large emphasis was placed on change coming from impacted community members as opposed to outside forces - change coming from dialogue between affected kids, parents, teachers, and law enforcement. I'd like to know of ways that we can get involved that aren't invasive.
ReplyDeleteI do think that race and social class can influence our level of concern. I think the media can play a role in whether society wants to address the problem of gangs affecting underprivileged areas. From my experience, the media only shows how gangs are involved with drugs and violence. Therefore, I know that media has convinced many people that gangs are detrimental to society. In movies, gangs are always shown as running away from the police or getting into gunfights. Since gangs are portrayed in such a negative fashion, I can see why people want to avoid them. The privileged are not only able to distance themselves, but they are able to completely divide themselves from any “safety hazards” such as gangs. Since the upper social classes are able to separate themselves, the lower social classes are forced to house gangs in their areas. Therefore, lower social class areas are misinterpreted as gang-related, and since the upper social class does not want to affiliate with the gangs, they merely avoid the topic of gangs affecting lower class areas altogether.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of the angle from which we look at the perception of gang violence in America, I think the inevitable conclusion will be that our opinions are racially tinged. It's frustrating that people choose to overlook the fact that the victims and perpetrators of gang violence are primarily minorities because of the history in this country that has marginalized those groups and the systemic racism that continues to create these vicious cycles. Reading this blog post reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom a few months ago where she was telling me about the experience of one of her students in their field placement (she teaches a graduate program in social work) at a continuation school (a school for kids who have problems with chronic expulsion from public schools but still must attend school because of the law). Many of these kids tend to be gang members, and most of them are racial minorities. This particular continuation school is in a back room in a church, and they put a padlock on the doors to keep the students safe but also to keep them from leaving. I believe someone was shot in front of or around the building within the last year. It is hard for me to believe that these standards would be acceptable if it wasn't primarily black and Hispanic gang members being affected. Something about the idea of the people in gangs seems to allow many people to strip away their humanity, and I think it's important to keep in mind that society compounds the issue when we demonstrate that we only care about the quality of living conditions for certain groups of people.
ReplyDeleteOk so my blogpost was really just me writing down what I was thinking as I was thinking it (and my thoughts are kind of all over the place), and in doing so, my grammar was appalling. So sorry english teachers!
ReplyDeleteWhat I do know is that in the early 2000s, the LA city council voted to change the name "South Central" to "South Los Angeles" as a way to rebrand and put a new image on a community that was known for its gang violence and poverty. As if slapping a new title on something could miraculously fix the problem- cover it up somehow. I think that sort of has to do with NIMBYism in a way - that whole idea where of course we all want issues to be resolved as long as they don't affect us directly - and it's like we think changing the name of a place will all of a sudden make that place better. That also kind of ties in with what Emma was saying - about how little we pay attention to issues that don't concern people that look like us (in effect, we don't really care much about problems that affect races that are not our own). And yet a lot of issues are put into the hands of politicians and city council members who find it easiest to put a bandaid over a situation that doesn’t directly concern them, or concern people that look like them (primarily white ppl).
I obviously don’t think our level of concern should have to do with race or social class, but it is clear that it does. I don’t know a whole lot of concrete info about this topic, so I think it would be beneficial for us to learn more about this and also brainstorm ideas on how we, as a class, can address this.
Like Pranay mentioned, the media tends to only show the intersection of drugs/violence and gangs. I think this image has really shaped the way most people, ourselves included, think of gangs. However, as Emma pointed out, there are a lot of other protections and benefits that gangs can provide for individuals; a sense of safety and protection when so much of our society targets low income, minority communities.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about how, often times gangs are directly connected to violence, and therefore seen as bad. In a lot of civil rights movements, however, POC/women/other disenfranchised groups have used used violence because there was simply no other way to fight their cause. I know those two situations are different, but this blogpost made me think about the ways we tend to label violence and how that in and of itself can isolate people.
For my groups urban lab today, we visited the Urban Peace Institute, which is a really cool nonprofit organization working to make communities safer and healthier by facilitating conversations across "gang lines", and including parents, students, administrators, police, and community members in the process. Here's the link to check out more of what they do:
https://www.urbanpeaceinstitute.org/
I don’t know too much about gang history and gangs today, so I too decided to do some research. I found this really interesting article from Stanford that goes through the history of gangs of each race. What I found particularly interesting was that Hispanic and African American gangs were formed in the 1920s, but Asian gangs and White gangs weren’t formed until the late 1980s. Obviously, a lot of the reason for that was due to the oppression of Hispanics and African Americans, but I’m interested as to why Asian gangs weren’t formed earlier… Anyways, the Stanford article went into detail about the Crips and Bloods gangs, and I’ve heard of them before but only because people have been talking about them at school since sophomore year, so it was interesting to finally a=learn about them. Also, here’s the link to the website: https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/gangcolor/madness.htm
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, like the other people have said, I do think that race plays a major role in the prioritization of remedying this “epidemic”. This is evident from the history of gangs and even today in how our government is handling the issue. Like Emma said, because gang violence doesn’t really affect our community, most of us don’t know much about gangs or their history. So, no, I don’t think that we value these citizens equally. I feel like if the majority of people in our community (and I know that this is a super large generalization) don’t know about the history of gang violence or why gangs came to be, we can’t really value them equally. Finally, I would really like to hear the gang podcast group share what they have learned so far and what they plan on doing for their podcast. I’m interested to see where they take their project…
Race and social class has definitely played a role in influencing those to have a level of concern. I have to agree with Pranay as well about media. For this exact reason, I try to advocate positive representation of those who are misrepresented/underrepresented in media. We all know that it is mostly white Hollywood writing/producing film and TV and consequently, they write what THEY think is another minority's reality. The misrepresentation of minorities is harmful. Visual storytelling/film/TV/social media are powerful creative platforms that influence millions of people everyday. When large audiences absorb content that can be falsely interpreted, it creates a poor image for those who are on the receiving end of that. Middle-Upper class people writing about lower class is problematic. No one can ever authentically write about an experience that is not theirs. For this reason, gang related issues in media can be misinterpreted on a grand scale because of its unauthentic approach.
ReplyDeleteI definitely do think that race and socioeconomic status play a large role when talking about the concern surrounding gangs and gang violence in LA. Like Emma said earlier, people are less likely to care about something that doesn't directly affect them in the community they reside in. With my mom dealing with many crimes involving gang violence and the cousins on my dad side that live in LA, I am exposed to a different environment. However, I can not begin to say I understand everything about it. Before she passed, one of my dad's cousins lived on 2nd and Slauson in front of Van Ness Park/Van Ness Recreation; my dad and I visited often and most times when we did, my cousin Martha would talk about the gang activity at the park across the street. Her concern was centered around the fact that kids would have to be careful playing at the park and walking around when gangs were present. Her concerns really resonated with me during our interview with UPI today. I found it unsettling that something like walking to and from school could potentially be dangerous. I would definitely say talking with her/hearing her concerns gives me a perspective I wouldn't have if I didn't have family members living on 2nd, 7th, and other areas off of Slauson.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cole about how race and social class has a role in influencing those to a level of concern. However, I also agree with Simone that people are less likely to care about something when it doesn't affect them. I believe that media coverage of gangs has shown them as violent groups that sell drugs and have a negative impact on their community. I agree with Pranay's point that lower income communities are often perceived as gang related even though it is due to how they must house the gangs, as the rich are too powerful to.
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ReplyDeleteToday, Luke, Brennan, and I went to Homeboy Industries. During our time there, we were fortunate enough to interview two ex-gang members, John and Brenda. Although our stay was cut short due to the time limitations, we were able to get a more informed and first-hand account of gang life in Los Angeles.
ReplyDeleteAt the age of twelve, both Brenda and John joined the local gangs in their community. When asking why they did so, both agreed that the gangs offered them both a sense of security and family, something their families could not at the time. As they grew older, John and Brenda were in and out of prison for the majority of their adolescence and young adulthood. While in his gang, John told us he had been shot twice (in the neck and leg) and stabbed multiple times by rival gang members, and Brenda exclaimed how she had also been attacked and beaten while in public. This struck me because I had often thought much of the violence in gangs was often exaggerated in a way that blasted the reality of the brutality out of proportion; however, after this interview, I began to question this notion.
In response to Luke's question, I do believe I have always been aware of the prominent gang violence, after all, I did choose this podcast topic because of this. However, after visiting Homeboy today, I genuinely believe this was a transformative experience. Before today, I had never had the opportunity to speak with an ex-gang member. In doing so, I am now more motivated and interested than ever to continue to research and discover more about this epidemic that is part of Los Angeles. But most importantly, as Brenda said in the interview "we're normal too," and I couldn't agree more.
I think that social class and race definitely influences people's level of concern about the gang violence in Los Angeles. I also think that the media plays a huge role in the portrayal of gangs and gang violence. The media depicts gangs and extremely violent and heavily involved in drugs. People who aren't affected by gang violence are less likely to see gang members as humans rather than the stereotypical criminal. Because of this stereotypical narrative many people treat gang members (or people who look "suspicious") as less than human. Although many people think gangs are nothing but trouble, many people join gangs for protection which creates sort of a family aspect. I feel the media hasn't changed my opinion on these individuals/communities because I know people that have been affiliated with gangs that are polar opposite of the "typical gangbanger". I do feel if I did not know these people that the media would have clouded my judgement.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Emma in that we tend to not worry about issues that don’t directly affect us. I do think we value these individuals equally, but I also think most people generally have a negative feeling towards gangs which in return makes them not want to associate with or learn about them in anyway. Therefore, rather than understanding them, I think people tend to stay as far away from gangs as possible out of fear.
ReplyDeleteAlso everything I know about gangs (which is very little) is from movies I’ve watched such as Gran Torino, music by YG, and stories from my uncle who is a police officer. The impression I get from the media is that gangs are incredibly violent. I don’t know much about why people join gangs or literally anything else, so I’ll definitely be looking into that.
I am also interested in what Coco said about black and latino gangs being formed in response to white gangs. I want to research into that and see how the reasons for gang formations have changed.
I think a major factor preventing legislators and communities from effectively addressing gang violence is that we don’t discuss it with empathy, nuance, or awareness of historical causes for gang activity– instead, gang members are demonized and further stigmatized, contributing to white paranoia and racist stereotyping of people of color. I think the conversation and perception surrounding gang violence is definitely influenced by racism, and in turn continues to reinforce racism as white people, politicians, and law enforcement agents stereotype and profile people of color based on perceived association with gangs. I read an online article about black residents of a Melbourne suburb who, after the Australian government’s repeated warnings about “African gang” activity in the area, were harassed by people who thought they were part of a gang. A recent NBC News article detailed how allegations of “gang affiliation” against people suspected to belong to the MS-13 gang (which is not a LA-specific group but I think the policing aspect applies) have been used to profile and deport young immigrants of color in New York. Basically, the article explained how, when an individual is alleged to be affiliated with a gang, they are added to gang databases, which have been used worldwide to target and profile people of color for supposed gang activity. The bases for these “gang affiliations” are ridiculous and clearly enable biased enforcement: people can be flagged for the clothes they wear, tattoos they have, graffiti they are suspected responsible for, or locations they were seen in. As the article points out, actually being in a gang is not illegal; unless someone is suspected of actually committing a punishable offense, the police have no justifiable reason for tracking their activity or flagging their name. Yet they often use alleged affiliation to label and scrutinize young people of color (particularly immigrants), which may cause those people to face future profiling or, if they are applying for citizenship or permanent residence, affect the outcome of their application. If they go to court to face a criminal charge, their "affiliation" is often brought up and used against them, despite being speculative and totally unsubstantiated. Anyway, I think it’s worth discussing how perceptions of gang violence contribute to racism, even while lawmakers completely ignore the actual causes of the problems.
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